Azalea immediately left the bed to dress up. Then, as she was ready, the person that Richard sent to pick her up had arrived.
And, to her surprise, it was Richard’s assistant. He pulled a smile, “You need public attention for your upcoming show, right? Mr. Clark suggests that you should cozy up with Mr. Davis later. That should be enough to help you with that.”
By that, Richard was straight up telling her what she should do when she saw Michael later. Naturally, Azalea had no objection to it.
Once the car pulled up at the Wolf Group Hotel, she got out of it and headed towards Michael’s room, which Richard’s assistant had provided her with.
Azalea waited for quite a long time before Michael finally came dozily to answer the door.
“Michael! My goodness. Are you okay?” she cried, throwing herself into Michael’s arms without giving him time to react.
And before he realized it, a paparazzi had already taken a photo of them hugging in front of the hotel room door. Although he didn’t notice the paparazzi, he quickly came to his senses and pushed her away.
Displeased, Michael asked, “Why are you here?”
“Richard asked me to come to check on you, saying something about a fight with you last night? He asked me to apologize to you on his behalf,” Azalea replied.
Then, she faked her worries and continued, “Is Richard starting to have doubts about Abbie and you? Do you think he’ll let his guard down if we pretend that you’re close with me instead of Abbie? You know… So that you’ll still be able to see her.”
Michael wanted to ask her to leave the moment he saw her. But after listening to what she had got to say, he changed his mind and let her in. After all, if Richard found out about his plan, Michael would never have the chance to get close to Abbie anymore.
On the other hand, Abbie didn’t wake up until it was noon because she stayed up the night before.
And as she went down the stairs, she was confused to see Richard still at home, watching the news on the television in the living room.
“Richard? Are you alright? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
He looked in her direction and mocked, “Look who’s up. You woke up because you’re hungry?”
“Yup,” Abbie shrugged, ignoring his comment, and headed straight to the dining room, where her lunch awaited her.
As she was wolfing down the food, Richard came to the dining room as well. He sighed rather loudly when he saw her, “Have you seen yourself? You’re eating like a beast.”
“Oh, please,” Abbie rolled her eyes. “I’m too pretty to be a beast.”
“Can you at least try to be modest?” Richard scoffed and took the seat next to her. He then placed a credit card on the table and continued, “Take this and go shopping later. Or, I don’t know, do something with your hair.”
“Okay… You’re now officially weirding me out,” Abbie eyed Richard. “Why are you so nice to me today? What did you do?”
“Fine, it seems like you don’t want it,” Richard shrugged. As he was about to take the card back, Abbie snatched it from his hand and grinned, “I was only joking. So, what do I need to do in return?”
“You’re having dinner with Raymond tonight.”
“What?” she was perplexed. “Why? No! I’m not going!”
“Why not? He’s good-natured, and he’s handsome. Why don’t you want to meet with him?” Richard asked as well.
Abbie insisted, “No reason. I just don’t want to go.”
“Is it because of Michael? He’s not what you think he is,” Richard laughed coldly. “Don’t ever think that I’ll let you date him.”
“Hold up, no one here wants to date him, okay? Stop making things up.”
“I wish you meant that. Because Michael is Azalea’s fiancé. You should know what the others will think about you if you fight with your adopted sister just over a man.”
Abbie slapped her spoon onto the table and glared at Richard, “Can you please stop talking about this?”
“Fine. But you’re going to the dinner with Raymond tonight no matter what,” Richard was adamant. “He’s loyal, sweet-tempered, and good-looking. He’s also an old friend. Just give him a chance. I’m sure you’ll like him.”
“Richard,” Abbie sighed. “I really don’t like him.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. Just look at Valeria. She wasn’t into William in their earlier days too. And now they’re inseparable, right?”
“It’s not the same, Richard. William saved Valeria, so it’s no surprise that she fell in love with him,” Abbie retorted. “But I have no intention of being romantically involved with Raymond!”
Richard tried to coax her, “Just give it a try, will you? It’s not like you’ve tried to date him. I’ll leave you alone if you dated him for a few months but still don’t have feelings for him.”
“I’m more of a love-at-first-sight kind of woman. So, I can tell you that I won’t ever feel for Raymond,” Abbie was unmoved.
Richard’s face fell when he saw that his persuasion did nothing. He sternly said, “That’s not up to you. Go, or there will be consequences.”
Truth be told, he was worried that Michael would two-time Abbie if they were to date. Richard couldn’t possibly allow such a thing to happen to her. So, he must pick someone worthy of her to be her boyfriend.
So far, he was only satisfied with Andrew and Raymond. However, Andrew, as opposed to Raymond, clearly showed no interest in Abbie.
After much consideration, Richard decided that Raymond was the best he could find for Abbie. After all, Raymond was the heir of the Saunders family, and he was good-looking. In many ways, he was much better than Michael. Richard was sure that Abbie, given some time, would begin to see the good in Raymond.
However, Abbie was infuriated. She was coerced into meeting with someone she didn’t want, and she could do nothing about it. Richard was clear that if Abbie were to disobey him, he would immediately send her out of the country. And she had got it enough. So, she could only reluctantly agree to the dinner that night.
Even though Richard had gotten the initial result he wanted, Abbie wasn’t planning on giving him the outcome he wished for. She decided to invite Valeria along to the dinner with her that night just to upset Richard.
At the thought of that, Abbie fished her phone out of her pocket, wanting to call Valeria. But, as soon as she unlocked the screen, she saw an overwhelming amount of headlines from the social media platforms that burnt her eyes.
And all of them were about Michael and Azalea.
‘Azalea Clark visits her fiancé at his hotel room late at night.’
‘Can’t wait! Azalea Clark and her fiancé get into ‘business’ in the hallway.’
‘Lunch after a busy night? Azalea Clark and her fiancé showed up in a restaurant.’
Such and such, the headlines all had different photos of Michael and Azalea together attached to them.
Abbie’s blood boiled when she saw all those headlines and photos.
Needless to say, Michael had messed things up.